


Without You

by rvst



Series: FemTropeBingo 2015 [4]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Zombies, reuniting exes, why not?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3451367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla stopped pacing. She sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. Talking to herself and expecting an answer was a new feature in her life. It was Danny's fault.</p><p>Over the last month, a lot of things had become 'Danny's Fault'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without You

Carmilla paced alone in her family manor. She growled and snarled and spat at her silent laptop. The lack of communication worried her, perhaps irrationally.

 

"Everything else is dead so therefore, she has to be fine," she reassured herself quietly. "She's dead too, but a higher class of dead."

 

Carmilla stopped pacing. She sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. Talking to herself and expecting an answer was a new feature in her life. It was Danny's fault.

 

Over the last month, a lot of things had become 'Danny's Fault'.

 

* * *

 

 

Carmilla lay strewn across one of the finely carved tables in the library, a chemistry textbook held above her head and her boots tapping along to the music in her ears. Philosophy grew tired every decade or so, and she picked a different discipline to amuse herself with until her passion returned.

 

She hummed a tune from centuries ago while she read. Her focus was divided but absolute. Carmilla did not notice the vampire stalking her silently from the edge of the library.

 

Long fingers reached out and curled around her headphones, ripping them away violently. Carmilla was off the table and on her feet in a flash. Though she could tell who it was she felt that a strong showing was necessary this early in the afternoon.

 

"Hello, dear!" Danny's shining blue eyes gleamed down at her, joyful at her own annoying behavior. "How's your day going?"

 

Carmilla glared hard at her extremely long-term girlfriend, stopping herself from tackling her self-satisfied body into the nearest table. Danny complained endlessly when she broke something that could be replaced with hours of work. Her big, bad vampire girlfriend was violently wary of splinters, Carmilla remembered with a twitch to her eyes.

 

"It was excellent right up until about five seconds ago," she hissed, not yet relenting on her steady glare. Danny nodded eagerly, taking in her words and then immediately discarding any and all meaning behind them.

 

"Awesome, so I am bored," Danny stated plainly. Carmilla kept glaring. Danny's stupid grin didn't falter one iota. "You are going to help me alleviate some of my boredom!"

 

She was just excited enough that Carmilla took her intentions the wrong way. Letting herself look forward to an energetic night ahead, Carmilla forgot who exactly she was dealing with.

 

"I bet I can run to the end of the county and back faster than you," she suggested, keeping her brightness and continuing to ignore Carmilla's annoyance. "No?"

 

Carmilla only growled with frustration in response.

 

"No," Danny answered herself, "not foot races. I win, you pout." Danny perched herself on the tables opposite Carmilla's makeshift reading bed. "We take the cars out for a road tr-"

 

"Xena!" Carmilla interrupted her idiot before she could suggest anything equally as silly as a damn running race. "What the hell?"

 

Danny's grin finally went away, falling in favour of a measured frown. "I'm bored," she said with more meaning behind the word than before, "and there's a whole world out there."

 

Ice flooded through Carmilla's veins. "We had twenty years to see the world before it went to hell, and we got through everything on your list!" Carmilla insisted quietly.

 

Danny didn't pout or push the issue further. That had not worked once in her entire time knowing Carmilla, and she didn't think it would be starting now.

 

"I don't know if you've noticed, but the world has changed a little bit since then," Danny countered slowly. "The world might be populated by nothing more than vampires and zombies for all we know!"

 

Carmilla rolled her eyes. "Humans are like cockroaches. They've survived, I promise."

 

Danny's face lit up, like she'd just one of their epic week-long Monopoly matches. "Exactly!"

 

Carmilla didn't have a clue what was wrong with her girlfriend, yet she could sense that the result would both annoy and exhaust her when Danny came out with it. She rolled her hand in the air to prompt her idiot giant on further.

 

"We go and find the cockroaches!" Carmilla was, as per usual, absolutely correct.

 

"No."

 

"Yes!" Carmilla tried glaring at her to no avail. Nothing shook Danny's unwavering optimism and excitement. "Not all of them, but someone, anyone!"

 

Something about her words slammed into Carmilla's heart. She ran, she ran so fast that Danny didn't have time to react before Carmilla was deep inside their wine cellar. She slumped against a rack of reds with her head cradled in her hands.

 

The weight on her chest grew until she couldn't breath, so she stopped breathing altogether. Carmilla stayed perfectly still and fell asleep several hours later.

 

Danny didn't bother her again for three days.

 

-

 

Carmilla pressed the accelerator to the floor, flying full speed at the already wrecked pile of supercars. Month Two: Everything Is Danny's Fault And She Should Be Punished.

 

Maturity would come later, hopefully. Carmilla worried about what would happen to the manor and the estate that surrounded it if she let her childish desires to get back at her bleeding heart absentee girlfriend take over.

 

As she went sailing towards the pile of cars, it occurred to her that maybe she didn't have a girlfriend anymore. The crash hurt more than all of the previous ones combined.

 

The fireball could be seen for miles. The piles of undead would be showing up before much longer. Carmilla would continue to ignore them out of spite. Whatever crusade Danny was off charging into blindly, Carmilla certainly wasn't going to help.

 

"Come here and fucking waste your dead time chasing after me, you stupid morons," Carmilla grumbled to the zombies at large. They liked fire and noise, Carmilla was bringing plenty of both so she would have more than enough friends to keep herself company. Danny, she remembered with the fond haze of hindsight, informed her that normal people don't kill friends. Therefore, Carmilla would allow the zombies to continue on their merry way for a while longer.

 

Honour among the undead, or some other kind of bullshit.

 

Were there other women left in the world for her to find some kind of companionship with? Or had she screwed herself over by having one fucking fight with Danny?

* * *

 

 

"We are perfectly safe in here," Carmilla hissed at her lover. Danny continued stuffing clothes into her heavy hiking backpack. Carmilla punched the pillow she was hugging, giving herself some time to think. "What do you think you can do?"

 

Danny sighed, putting down the shirt she was failing to force into the bag. She crossed their bedroom and threw herself onto the bed next to Carmilla.

 

"Anything, something, I don't know," she explained poorly. Carmilla shifted slightly towards her, unable to stop herself. Danny held out an arm, inviting Carmilla to cuddle against her. "You aren't getting a little bit sick of my face?"

 

She asked it playfully. Carmilla pushed her violently off the bed, taking half a second to feel the guilt. "Are you sick of mine?"

 

Danny growled, something she didn't do when she was human. "No-"

 

"Then why?" Carmilla glared hard, silently daring Danny to try and add levity again.

 

"To be anywhere but here," Danny snapped. Her hands flew to her mouth immediately as Carmilla's eyes widened.

 

"That's not what I meant," she rushed out so fast it might as well have been one word. "I love our house, it's pretty much the best place I've ever lived."

 

Carmilla's breathing evened out, carefully concealing how much Danny hurt her with her perceived slight. "Yes, the street you were living on when we met is clearly such a small step down from this," she snarled, wanting her words to hurt, to cut. "Please, explain why you think anyone out there deserves one second of your time?"

 

Carmilla heard Danny's counter before she could say it, they'd been together far too long, stayed far too close. "Because as far as we know, humanity is living on the damn street, Mircalla!"

 

Carmilla's eyes burned with rage, her muscles tensed and she sat on her hands to prevent herself from doing something she couldn't take back. "I am not sleeping with all of humanity," she deadpanned. Danny's lips quirked at the attempt at levity.

 

"You know what I mean."

 

"I'm not going around the damn world, saving the last gasp of humanity," Carmilla stated, "they fucked themselves over. I am going to stay here and spend forever with you."

 

Danny visibly melted at the declaration, like she always did, but her expression remained hard and determined. "I can't not do anything," she whispered, whining like a dog with a thorn in its paw.

 

Carmilla felt the stabbing in her heart she'd only felt once before in her life, either the alive or the dead part. She resigned herself to it again, at least she wouldn't be buried for decades this time. Danny, though she had her moments, could never be as cruel as Mother.

 

"You're going to go whether I come with you or not, aren't you?" Carmilla asked without feeling. She allowed the preemptive loss to roll over her entire body. Danny refused to look at her, confirming her fears. She got to her feet and resumed her packing.

 

"It won't be forever," Danny tried to ease Carmilla's feelings, failing horribly and somehow managing to make things worse. "I'll be less than a year, I promise."

 

She wouldn't, Carmilla knew that. Danny kept her word if it was within her power.

 

Carmilla walked with her girlfriend, not taking out her rage on the other woman as she left. That would be immature and ridiculous and then she was yelling.

 

God, she didn't even remember what she was yelling, but Danny was nearly crying. Carmilla was spiteful, cruel, and above all she was cutting her love to the bone.

 

Danny stood with tears welling in her eyes at the heavy, solid gates to their estate. She could have jumped clear over their walls, but wanted to leave via the actual exit. It would make the start of her journey feel better, more official. Carmilla's words genuinely hurt, and the tears spilled out without her permission.

 

They stood separated, Danny with one hand on the mechanism to open the doors for a few seconds and Carmilla seething with fury as she recovered from her ranting.

 

"I'm a terrible person for wanting to go help people?" Danny asked through her broken breaths. Carmilla's jaw hung open.

 

"Seriously? That's what you take from all that?" Carmilla nearly screamed at the fucking dumbass.

 

Danny shrugged, pulling in her tears as she straightened her spine. Size didn't so much intimidate Carmilla as it made Danny seem more serious and respectable to her.

 

"You get really mean when you're scared," she answered carefully. "I'm trying not to take what you're saying to heart."

 

Danny stepped forwards suddenly, pulling Carmilla in for a rough kiss before turning to leave.

 

"Fuck you," Carmilla yelled after her.

 

* * *

 

 

Danny didn't write.

 

Carmilla physically slapped herself. The world essentially ended, the postal service wasn't doing super good. It was a miracle that the Internet was still up and running, something which puzzled both her and Danny since they entered their estate to ride it out.

 

Danny didn't email! Or Skype! Decades of loving devotion and Carmilla didn't warrant a call after one fight?

 

One really big fight that possibly ended their relationship for good, but still! One!

 

Carmilla kept grumbling to herself with ever-growing fury, building a ball of fury against the woman she loved that she could feel would take an age to dissolve.

 

Danny should have found a way to keep in contact. To at least let Carmilla know that she was still alive.

 

The forest fires off in the distance weren't helping her growing sense of unease regarding Danny's continued absence.

 

Vampires didn't burn. Mother taught her that less than a week after her rebirth. Carmilla intimately knew that vampires didn't burn. But there were some trees in Australia that fucking exploded, and trees falling over could trap Danny long enough for her to starve to death.

 

Which Camrilla knew took about thirteen days, Mother made sure she knew that too.

 

She stood on the roof, staring at the billowing clouds of smoke with packs of blood at her feet. Carmilla watched the fires burn for eleven days, counting down the seconds until Danny was probably dead. She diminished their supply of homemade beer by half during those ten days.

 

Yes, vampires absolutely could get drunk.

 

That one was Danny and a literal vat of scotch.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Carmilla waited until she couldn't hear Danny's footsteps anymore, it took three hours, she wasn't in a hurry. She sat perfectly still on the front staircase, not willing to give in the battle of wills she'd invented out of nothing. Carmilla waited, then she bolted through their heavy doors, cracking one of them directly down the middle.

 

She ran up the stairs at human speed, letting the inner drama queen out for a while. Crashing through the doors to the bedroom, Carmilla threw herself onto the bed, regretting it immediately.

 

Danny's scent was everywhere, taunting her, mocking her poor life choices.

 

"God, fuck you, woman!" Carmilla screamed into her own pillow, not caring about maintaining pride or whatever anymore. Danny was gone and there was no one else possibly on the entire planet to hear her scream.

 

Their communications array spent years at a time without picking up on any kind of signal.

 

Carmilla didn't care to know the details past cackling at humanity shooting itself in the foot so hard that it devastated the global population and turned the dead into brainless monsters. There was bound to be someone left alive, probably off in a cave nursing their limited bullets and waiting for the morning when their will to live dipped underneath their will to escape the hopelessness of the situation.

 

Despite being surrounded by Danny, this made her smile. People amused her, watching them destroy themselves kept her entertained for the entire decade it took humanity to end their tenure as the dominant species on the planet. Back then at least Danny understood that there were literally two of them and literally billions of people, then there were literally at least a billion fucking zombies.

 

Back then, Carmilla thought far more wistfully than she wanted, Danny was sane and reasonable. Didn't think she could save the world. Survived.

 

Enough of anything would kill them. Even zombies.

 

"She's going to get herself killed and I'm going to set fire to the library," Carmilla said plainly to herself. She could picture the multitude of all seven ways her lover could get herself killed out in the big wide world, and each one of them gave her a twisted jolt of pleasure.

 

One year alone in an estate that, were Carmilla to be honest with herself, could reasonably house around fifty people comfortably.

 

How hard could that possibly be?

 

* * *

 

 

Carmilla was pretty sure that she was losing her mind. Thirteen years alone with only Danny fucking Lawrence for company and she was fine. Six months by herself and suddenly remaining sane was a big damn problem.

 

She was standing on the roof with Danny's spare bow, shooting at the small horde of zombies she let in the usually perfectly constructed gates. Pride wouldn't let her go out and search for her Danny, but she could comply with her general 'actually do something to help' sentiment, right?

 

"Could you all please form an orderly line so I can shoot you!" She yelled down to the horde. Her aim was roughly as terrible as it always remained. Danny tried on many occasions to teach her to use the thing properly, but that always ended up with Carmilla successfully distracting her girlfriend.

 

The collected infected didn't comply with her wishes. Bastards.

 

By sheer luck her next shot struck one of them cleanly through his right eye. Carmilla allowed herself a quick victory shimmy. Danny would be proud of her.

 

Taking shots, missing wildly, she went until Danny's massive pile of arrows was spent. A first in over a decade. She tossed the bow away in disgust at its inefficiency as a weapon. Carmilla forced her bones to shift, cracking and creaking as she changed herself to be more combat ready.

 

Falling off high places was always more fun as a cat.

 

Her claws ripped through their chests. She tore through more than twenty of them in less than ten seconds. Carmilla kind of started to see Danny's point, they could probably have been doing a lot more than the pile of nothing they'd spent the last decade or more doing.

 

High on the thrill of killing things after so long, Carmilla started charging around the perimeter of the estate. She checked on the defenses and annoyingly found them all to be as secure as always. Danny's construction skills improved to the level of mastery within weeks of Carmilla turning her into a vampire.

 

Carmilla kept running until she couldn't breath any longer. She collapsed in the middle of the estate, far enough away from the pile of bodies that it didn't bother her highly sensitive nose while fufilling her need to see the stars.

 

-

 

"It has been three hundred and sixty-fucking-six days, you lying pain in my ass!" Carmilla screamed from the front steps of the manor. She had sat vigilant for the last two days in case Danny came home early. Clearly, Danny did not come home early. In fact, Danny was running a little bit late.

 

"I fucking swear to God if you aren't here in the next hour, I am coming out there and killing every living thing I find until I can strangle your stupid pretty neck, Danny Lawrence!"

 

The yelling and screaming and ranting started at midnight at the end of the year. It took Carmilla a minute or two to comprehend that Danny hadn't kept her promise. She spent a whole seven seconds considering the slightly more fatal explanations for Danny's lack of prompt arrival, and quickly discarded this notion in favour of getting the limited remains of their alcohol supply and setting up camp more permanently on the steps.

 

"And if you're dead, then I'm killing every human fucking being I come across just to fucking spite you and your stupid-ass plan!"

 

There was a whole mess of zombies battering at the walls and the gate. Carmilla had steadily ignored them for the last week and a half. She knew that they were there, but acknowledging them any further would lead to guilt and thinking about how Danny still wasn't fucking home, the liar.

 

"Will you all please shut the fuck up, I am trying to have a discussion with my absent ex-girlfriend!" Carmilla paced with heavy footfalls, cracking the stone of the stairs every few steps. "I think I'm winning, she's stopped defending herself!"

 

The zombies stopped suddenly, as if they actually listened to her and obeyed her orders. For a hot second, Carmilla's semi-drunken mind convinced her that she was the dominant undead species and that therefore meant that all other forms of the undead would follow her commands without question.

 

The squelching noises Carmilla associated with bodies being ripped apart broke the silence between the vampire and the zombies. Carmilla's body tensed, wary of whatever was attacking the horde. She felt exposed out the front of her own house, shifting into her slightly more violent form. Her favourite form of self defense.

 

The sleek black fur gleamed darkly in the dying twilight. Her paws were feather light compared to her heavy combat boots and enhanced moody steps. Carmilla trotted out slowly to meet whatever the threat to her undead minions was and if she could save them.

 

Danny needed to come back last week, she found herself thinking. Zombies smelled weird and icky and Carmilla wanted nothing to do with them, even in an overlord situation.

 

Carmilla was halfway to the gates when she heard the mechanism click. Her gentle pace turned into a vicious charge, pulling together the momentum to kill the hell out of whatever was awaiting her on the other side of the gates.

 

"Why the heck are you swearing at the top of your lungs?"

 

Carmilla kept running, her ears perked fully upwards with joyous curiosity. The gates opened for their usual five seconds, letting exactly none of the undead inside the estate. Of course, all the zombies were dead in a weirdly neat pile outside the gates, but the security measure worked all the same.

 

Another non-zombie face appeared in Carmilla's enhanced feline vision. She could smell that Christmas tree in February scent that followed her lover everywhere she went, no matter what she did to stop it. Carmilla didn't even think to restrain herself.

 

Danny came home!

 

She bounded towards the giant woman, leaping gracelessly into her arms while still in animal form. Danny fell backwards, clinging to the big black panther nuzzling herself all over Danny's body.

 

"Did you miss me?" Danny asked through laughter. Carmilla purred loudly at the noise, continuing to rub her scent back all over her girlfriend. Still her girlfriend, would totally have stopped her by now if they weren't still together. Probably. Hopefully.

 

Carmilla bit her a little anyway, just to assert some kind of dominance and control into the situation.

 

"I forgot how damn rude you are," Danny moaned as she flung Carmilla off her so she could stand back up. "Could you please be a people-shaped clingy cat-person?"

 

Danny probably thought she was asking sarcastically, but all Carmilla heard was the sweet tone so she complied anyway. She shifted slowly, and the predatory cat grin stayed firmly planted upon her face.

 

"You're back?"

 

Danny nodded slowly, like she thought Carmilla went nuts while she was gone.

 

"And we're like, dating or whatever?"

 

Danny paused to think about that, which brought the elephant back to sit on Carmilla's chest. "I think we're common law married at this point, but sure?"

 

Carmilla launched herself at Danny again. Kissing her like she was a sailor back from an around the world voyage. Danny had exactly no clue what the heck got into Carmilla, and quickly decided that it was tomorrow's problem.

 

She lifted Carmilla up into her arms and disconnected their lips for painful seconds as she ran at superhuman speeds to their bed. She missed beds and she missed Carmilla. Danny missed very few things more than the combination of Carmilla and bed.

 

They had a week before anyone tried to disturb them anyway.

 

Danny didn't question any of the damage to the estate. She didn't even notice.

-

 

 

"I swear, if you didn't kill every last infected idiot across the entire planet, then you are in so much trouble, Xena," Carmilla threatened lightly later in bed. Danny went quiet, her fingers stilling halfway up Carmilla's spine.

 

"There's so many of them," she whispered, burying her face in Carmilla's wild hair. Carmilla reacted swiftly, pulling her love closer to give any comfort she could.

 

"I'll come too next time," mumbled Carmilla soothingly. If Danny was surprised, she didn't show it.

 

"Went stir-crazy?" Danny's voice came muffled through mass of hair in front of her, amused through whatever trauma her months away led her through. Carmilla growled at her, poking sharply into her stomach.

 

"A little, it's a big manor to live in all by yourself," she admitted carefully, keeping the depth of her months alone away from her lover. Danny really didn't need that kind of ammunition to use against her in future fights. Distraction was key. "Where did you go?"

 

Danny thought about it for far longer than Carmilla felt comfortable to allow. "I don't know where to start," she said finally after being prodded again. "There was a lot."

 

Carmilla chewed on this information. "Did you find any humans?"

 

Danny stiffened. Carmilla let her panic over whatever she was sitting on, giving her the time to stew in whatever she was guilty over. This got boring fast, like most things did.

 

"What did you do?"

 

Danny squirmed, toeing at her socks and shifting further towards Carmilla's neck. She whined, like a damn dog and not like the dignified vampire woman she was supposed to be. "I may have..."

 

Carmilla rolled her eyes. "I won't be mad much, promise?"

 

Danny pulled away to stare at Carmilla with disbelieving blue eyes.

 

"You really did go nuts, didn't you?"

 

Carmilla would have blushed if she could. Her toes flinched, though Danny mercifully ignored it. "Absent makes the heart and all that junk."

 

Danny smiled. "Yes I found people, no I don't want to talk about it right now."

 

Carmilla let her have the out just this once. Their night together would be allowed to continue without conflict. They could fight about whatever the heck Danny did in the morning.

 

"I want to hear all about it in the morning," Carmilla murmured to Danny's visible delight.

 

* * *

 

 

"Dear?" Carmilla yelled through the manor. Danny was at her side, blowtorch still turned on in her hand. "Why, exactly, can I hear truck engines?"

 

Danny's eyes widened.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here's another thing.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Written for if-you-seek-amy over on tumblr.


End file.
